The JackB

"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'." Groucho Marx

Television

Thanks For Nothing NBC

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I don’t know about you but I enjoy following The Olympics, always have. I like watching the various events and learning little bits and pieces about the athletes. You can depend upon the networks to do a couple of profiles that are really interesting.

And you can also depend upon the networks to do something really dumb. In their infinite wisdom they’ll hit a bulls eye in the boneheaded move category.

This year NBC has repeated some of the mistakes of the past. There is one in particular that chaps my hide. The suits have this nasty habit of showing events hours after the results have been posted on the Net. Look, I understand that Bejing is 15 hours ahead and that they are trying to do the best they can to help sell advertising by trying to push games into primetime.

That was fine when you hadn’t any access to the Net. When the best you could do was a string a couple of tomato cans together no one knew what was going on across the world and you could get away with tape delay.

But those monkeys don’t seem to care that there are millions of people who enjoy watching the events live. I want to savor the excitement of watching Michael Phelps race without knowing in advance that he is going to crush the competition. I want to wonder what is going to happen in gymnastics and ponder the possibilities.

Too bad for Old Jack. NBC doesn’t give a rat’s ass about that. They’ll show us Wednesday’s events on Thursday and then follow up by showing Thursday on Friday. A perverse Groundhog Day cycle.

Thanks for nothing NBC.

Jack & The Hulk

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Don’t make me angry, you wouldn’t like me when I was angry. Or should I say don’t make me drink coffee late at night or you’ll find me watching cheesy ’70s television at 2 AM.

Ok, I used to love this show, but really I’d rather be asleep. The morning will come far too soon and I’ll feel like hell. Unfortunately I am wide awake, so here I am. For those of you who never had the privilege to watch Bill Bixby play the role of David Banner, here you go.

My Fans Yell The Same Thing

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William Shatner said that having sex with fans was really hard because they always wanted him to beam them up.

In his new autobiography, Up Till Now, Shatner explains how women would pretend they were being “beamed up” by the Starship Enterprise commander, shrieking: “So, this is what it’s like to be in bed with Captain Kirk!”
He writes: “You can’t imagine how much of a downer that is in every sense of the word.”

Rikki-Tikki-Tavi – I loved This as a Kid

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Once upon a time I was a boy who lived in a house with a small Black and White television set. We didn’t have a remote or any sort of recording device. Yes, I know that it sounds primitive. Imagine a home without a VCR/DVD, TIVO, Cable/Satellite or home computer.

In the Jurassic era of television you didn’t have the luxury of renting movies or television shows. If you had to use the bathroom you did your best to hold it until the end of the show. If you were a sports fan and you didn’t want to miss the big game you had two choices. Throw a fit so that your parents/wife would let you stay home or bring your trusted portable radio with the white earbud to the party.

Back in those days the networks were run by mysterious, superbeings who would magically beam shows to your living room. Once a year you’d get the opportunity to make some popcorn and watch beloved shows like the Wizard of Oz or Rikki Tikki Tavi.

Unless you were The Shmata Queen in which case you were doomed to live beneath blackened skies and snow covered plains. Every day you’d pray that the river wouldn’t burst into flames and that the Browns wouldn’t lose because if they did it was your fault.